Defense ARJ executive editor

Welcome to the Defense Acquisition Review Journal (ARJ) theme edition upon Systems Engineering: Best Practices and tasks Learned. Systems Engineering (SE) is an integrated composite of tribe products, and processes that give us the capability to satisfy a stated ne or objective. The SE function within the acquisition framework consists of sum of two units significant disciplines: technical knowledge and engineering management. from one extremity to the other of the acquisition process, SE provides the Program Manager with a disciplined, structur and collaborative approach to transform requirements into well-designed and supportable results

Our featured authors for this edition are Scott freshet and Paul Richard. Their article, "An Assessment of the Lead combination of parts to form a wholes Integrator Concept as Applied to the coming time Combat System Program," discusses the vision of former Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki for the transformation to a lighter, more lethal, and more survivable force. The vision, which became the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, called for an immediate off-the-shelf solution to stimulate the disclosure of doctrine, organizational design, and leader training as the Army began to exhibit new technologies to field the objective force. The Army's reply to this challenge was to initiate a revolutionary acquisition program that utilizes an innovative combination of parts to form a whole development paradigm called a Lead a whole s Integrator (LSI). The intended object of the LSI was to provide a whole s engineering and management oversight from one extremity to the other of the development phases of the program, and to be responsible for the delivery of a system-of-system capable of engaging in net-centric warfare. From the start, the LSI was to focus upon "systems engineering, systems integration, and combination of parts to form a wholes planning and control to procure the best of industry to work the hardware."

The following article, "The Fortress and the Bazaar: Open-Source and DoD Software," through David Lechner and Harold Kaiser, highlights the application of an open-source software cast model for DoD software a whole s development. The tenets for this original were first laid out in an original paper entitled, "Cathedral and the Bazaar," written by dint of Eric S. Raymond in 1998 This article explores the implications of this prototype as it applies to defense weapons a whole s software. The attributes, problems, and benefits of open-source software are also discussed. Open-source throw outs are collaborative, rapidly updated and released, and pushed through highly motivated volunteers working with a diversity of interests, skills, and hardware places Benefits of open source for DoD include greater reliability, lower software exhibition and maintenance costs, and more rapid evolution.

David Cottengim's article, "Irreducible veritys of Software-Intensive Program Management," examines exercise s learned in software engineering management. For decades, the acquisition community has applied standard engineering and scientific principles to improve software unfolding methods and techniques. The contention of the article is that the not divisible by 2s are overwhelmingly against a software-intensive program achieving the goals and objectives established in its initial Acquisition Program Baseline. by the agency of any objective measure of succes almost each software program is going to deviate substantially from its take away from schedule, and performance baselines. Reasons for this lack of succes and possible solutions are discussed.

The nearest article, "An Index to Measure and Monitor a System-of-Systems' Performance Risk," by means of Paul R. Garvey and Chien-Ching Cho builds upon existing methodology for measuring the technical performance risk of a combination of parts to form a whole to that of a combination of parts to form a whole of systems (SOS). The classical approach combines an individual system's Technical Performance Measures (TPMs) into an overall measure of performance risk, defined as a Technical Risk Index (TRI). This article stretch outs this approach so a similar index can be unfolded for a system composed of many independent or combineed systems that come together as a whole to provide an thuss capability.

The following article, "Rubrics Cubed: Are We Prisoners of ORSA-Style Decision-Making?" by dint of COL Christopher R. Paparone, USA, and Dr James A. Crupi, asserts that acquisition professionals who have evolveed psychological and cultural preferences for ORSA-style decision making may be blinded to other decision-making rubrics and the valuable insights that can be derived from them. The authors provide insight into those alternatives and demonstrate the way in which decision makers can diocese complex cause-and-effect relationships and diagnose a "rubrics cubed" decision-making pattern. An expanded decision-making logic, beyond the single ORSA-based [i]modus operandi[/i] requires the decision maker and staff to consider multiple decision-making paradigms and causal stories simultaneously. All of these impressed signs are present to some step in some combination, all of the time. Together, they create a words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following in which the professional must diagnose each decision situation. Various positions within (and constituencies' outside) the organization may perceive the above decision patterns differently. An intricate view of the prevailing and shifting patterns appropriate for the decision at hand must be adopted through the decision maker.